Two Facet Economists: I Will Fire You If I Must, I Will Volunteer If I Can

Abstract

We conduct a social dilemma experiment in which the participants face a tradeoff between profit maximization (market norm) and workers’ welfare (social norm). We find that economics students make more profit-maximizing choices than non-economics students. Yet, economics students are as likely as non-economics students to volunteer and/or recycle. Moreover, in the experiment, students’ profit-maximizing decisions are uncorrelated with volunteering and recycling activities, suggesting that profit-maximizing decisions do not necessarily indicate a lower likelihood of altruistic or pro-social behavior.

Keywords: Prosocial Behavior, Self-Interest, Market Norms, Social Norms, Experimental Economics, Economists vs. Non-Economists